Friday, October 23, 2015

The Office of the Ombudsman is currently reviewing the operation of the OIA. As part of this, they've launched a series of surveys into the experiences of OIA users, in the hope of identifying frequent problems. There's three surveys: one for people who have made requests of the 12 government departments which are the focus of the investigation (and which can be filled out once for each department); one for people who have made requests from other government agencies; and one for current and former workers in government agencies about their experiences in responding to requests. You can fill out any or all of them.

Note that these are tailored surveys aimed at extracting specific information about people's experience, not a platform for general complaints. Those should go to oiasurvey@ombudsman.parliament.nz instead.

The more data the Ombudsman has, the better her review will be. So if you've made an OIA request in the last year, please respond to the survey. It closes on Thursday 5 November, so be quick about it.